Uchuu Kyoudai – 46

I wasn’t going to write much at all about this episode, but then the second half happened. It’s not that the first half was uninteresting, it’s just that there wasn’t all that much that could be said about it – we got to see a bit more of Serika’s family and learn that her fascination with food is shared by the rest of her family, and we got to learn a lot more about Kitamura’s family too. The exchange between her and her younger sister Kei (Okamoto Nami) was quite nice – deciding your future based on the one thing you want to do more than anything else. It’s a pity that kind of thing doesn’t always work out quite as easily as Kitamura makes it sound!

But the most interesting part of this episode was definitely the second half. A new arc is starting! A two year training arc! By the end Mutta will be able to smash rocks with his fists! It’s kind of irrelevant, but I wonder what kind of specialities each of the candidates would end up with in a Hunter x Hunter type universe (yes, I have become rather fond of Hunter x Hunter). The only one that leaps immediately to mind would be Serika eating everything. Everything. But I digress – the change of scenery is really quite nice, especially with the introduction of new characters and the likelihood of many more over the next few episodes. I don’t think Uchuu Kyoudai would get stale even without this, but it kind of feels like new life has been breathed into the series – like it’s only just beginning even though we’re forty-six episodes in. Hunter x Hunter really is a good comparison in that sense.

I kind of like Vincent Bold (Tsuda Kenjirou) already, even if he does seem to be rather impolite and abrupt. I think a large part of the reason I like him originates in his seiyuu and that his rudeness is handled in such a way that I actually find it rather humorous to watch. He believes that time is the most precious commodity – that it should never be wasted on mundane things. He drives ridiculously fast to shorten journeys, interrupts everyone before they finish speaking, and doesn’t even wait to be admitted after knocking, even when it’s someone as important as Jason Butler (Tachiki Fumihiko). He kind of has a point – journeys do suck and I sometimes find myself wishing we’d figure out teleportation sometime soon (tomorrow would be good). But they always say that the journey is as important as the eventual destination, albeit generally in a more metaphorical sense. This is true really and it feels as though, while dismissing the journey earlier in the episode, that he also fails to understand this in the metaphorical sense.

Next week, we’ll hopefully find out more about what Kenji had intended to say to Mutta, unless this will be the new recurring mystery for a while. At the very least, being trained by ex-military should be fun. To watch. For us. Poor astronaut candidates.

tl;dr:@MoombaDS – I think I talked more about #HxH again. Whoops. #SpaceBros

Random thoughts:

I’m not sure what to find funnier – Mutta falling for Murasaki’s prank or the deep meaning Kenji managed to find in it!

Mmmm, Anime Food. Got hungry during the first half watching Serik and Kitamura’s family eat. Tsuda Kenjirou’s distinctive voice does a great job in invoking fairly asshole characters, whether it’s the snobbish Chikage Kazama from Hakuouki (whose role is the only one I can remember from the top of my head, sadly) to this quietly rude astronaut trainer. Seriously, if I ever met this Vincent Bold kind of guy in real life, I’d get crazy and frustrated pretty easily.

And Mutta falls prey to more of Murasaki’s shenanigans once again. I feel ya, Mutta, arriving in a place wearing clothes that make people stare at you… and worse still you thought everybody else would wear it too! This is the kind of cringe humor that hits close to home.

This anime got the American media stereotype very well! That sitcom at the end? Totally Two and a Half men? It even had canned laughter at every little thing.